While the award itself is generally ragged on, the Lady Byng Trophy does lend an air of sophistication to the NHL and to the award proceedings. After all, an award that goes “to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability,” isn’t here to mess around by having guys that waste their days away in the penalty box. Sorry Dan Carcillo, I don’t think you’ll ever take this one down.

With the three finalists in Pavel Datsyuk, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis you’ve got guys that spent a combined 44 minutes in the penalty box with Datsyuk standing out as the “goon” of the bunch with 18 PIMs himself. Anyhow, it’s probably not too surprising that the guy that wins the award is the one who spent the least amount of time in the sin bin of the three and Martin St. Louis’ 12 PIMs helped pave his way to Lady Byng glory. The vote seemed to indicate that St. Louis had nothing to worry about from the voters.

Stunning to see St. Louis check in with 74 first place votes and more than double the number of points that Brad Richards had in finishing second. Even more fun was seeing St. Louis give his acceptance speech with notes he had on his BlackBerry instead of hand-written note cards or paper. Can’t fault the man for being a gentleman and a tech-savvy scholar.